Price and Quantity Index Numbers - Models for Measuring Aggregate Change and Difference

Price and quantity indices are important, much-used measuring instruments, and it is therefore necessary to have a good understanding of their properties. This book is the first comprehensive text on index number theory since Irving Fishers 1922 The Making of Index Numbers. The book covers intertemporal and interspatial comparisons; ratio- and difference-type measures; discrete and continuous time environments; and upper- and lower-level indices. Guided by economic insights, this book develops the instrumental or axiomatic approach. There is no role for behavioural assumptions. In addition to subject matter chapters, two entire chapters are devoted to the rich history of the subject. Contents
1. Price indices through history
2. The quest for international comparisons
3. Axioms, tests, and indices
4. Decompositions and subperiods
5. Price indices for elementary aggregates
6. Divisia and Montgomery indices
7. International comparisons: transitivity and additivity.